Editorial: Parts of gun 'plan' look very familiar

President Obama unveiled his “plan” to reduce gun violence Wednesday — an extensive proposal that includes 23 executive actions supposedly crafted to address the current national debate on gun control.

We put the word “plan” in quotations, because it doesn’t appear all of the president’s 23 power grabs constitute much of one — a plan, that is.

Here’s a few of our takes on some of the president’s executive orders he unleashed Wednesday on the public and the Second Amendment (items culled from www.whitehouse.gov).

■ The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will distribute a letter to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to implement background checks for private sales.

Such a letter would be helpful, since the president wants all gun transactions regulated with background checks. Of course, for the ATF to pen such a letter, it would also be helpful if the agency actually had an official director.

■ Nominate an ATF director.

No time like the present. The president did this Wednesday — perfect timing. The fact the ATF has not had an official director for the past six years seems a tad ironic, considering how gun control is now the major issue facing the nation.

■ Take executive action to provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

This sounds vaguely familiar to the much-maligned and criticized response by the National Rifle Association to the violent tragedy in Newtown, Conn. — putting good guys with guns in schools to stop bad guys with guns. This is straight from the White House: “School resource officers are specially trained police officers that work in schools.” The NRA was lambasted by gun control advocates for even suggesting such a thing, yet here we have the president pushing a similar idea. Oh well, as long as we get more good guys in schools ...

■ Conduct research on the causes and prevention of gun violence, including links between video games, media images and violence.

Again, is this not similar to what the NRA mentioned in its response to the Newtown shooting — and was then pilloried for having the gall to blame video games and Hollywood? Well, the president wants Congress to pony up $10 million for the Centers for Disease Control to research this “relationship.”

■ Give schools and other institutions a model for how to develop and implement reliable plans.

From the White House: “The Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security will release — by May 2013 — a set of model, high-quality emergency management plans for schools.” Fine. Most schools already have such emergency plans.

We hope the president’s future plans for gun control include at least some sort of congressional participation, which would be nice since we’re talking constitutional rights.